Moving Upwards
by VenetianCavebear
Summary: Ginny isn't as much of a Gryffindor as everyone thought. TG RR!
1. chapter 1

It started harmlessly enough.

Enough, of course, was relative from Virginia Weasley's perspective.

She'd once had a crush on Harry Potter--famous Harry Potter--in her first year at Hogwarts. Before that, even, when Ron had arrived home from his first year and all he could talk about was fabulous Harry and their friend Hermione, after he hadn't bothered to come home at Christmas to see _her_.

The little fact that she had instead gone to Romania to visit Charlie meant nothing, of course; it interfered with her version of events and had to be generally dismissed. Besides, if Ron _had_ wanted to, he could have gone with them. She had been Ron's tagalong sister because Percy was too prefect-y to follow around all the time and he had a girlfriend anyway, and the twins...only someone with a wish for death followed _them_ around for extended periods of time. So she'd stalked Potter in her first year, had generally been ignored by all and sundry, and had become bemired in trouble that wasn't neck-deep but rather so far above her that she couldn't see the surface.

Now she was fifteen, two months into her fifth year at Hogwarts, and it had long been time to put that admiration and longing aside.

If she thought about it, she hadn't really loved Potter since she had come to know him. She hadn't loved him in the first place, because she had been just a child. She'd worshipped the ground that he walked on, yes, but it hadn't been _real_. Instead, it had been something to... cling to. He was a boy her mother approved of, and he had saved her from a basilisk and Tom in her first year.

Harry had been nice enough to her, certainly, particularly when desperate for a date to the Yule Ball. It had been a last resort for him, after Cho had turned him down. Neville had already asked her to go with him, though, after Hermione had declined because she was going with Viktor, and Ginny had accepted his invitation. Honour wouldn't let her agree to Harry's later request and tell Neville she'd had a better offer, and for all that Neville couldn't dance he'd been happy to let her wander off after a few rounds in search of a better partner. He'd been using her so he wouldn't show up at the dance alone, but she'd been using him, too, and lorded her attendance over the other Gryffindors in her year for weeks after. There was no malice on either side, and Neville was a nice boy, if a little slow.

It was her fourth year that her childhood dreams had come true, only for her to realise they weren't what she wanted at all. Harry had turned to her for... affection, she supposed, but she had been stupid, naïve, and eager to please. Not so eager to please that she listened to his breathless words of affection, went weak at the knees, and raced him to his bedroom--even if the thought of Ron being in the next bed over wasn't enough to clamp her legs shut, the thought of being known as the school broom and the realisation that she didn't even enjoy it when Harry kissed her and fumbled in her shirt were _more_ than sufficient to make up her mind for her.

When Cho recovered from the broken heart she'd been left with after Cedric Diggory's death, helped in large part by counselling sessions with Dumbledore and--of all people--_Trelawney_, Cho seemed to think it natural that she would have Harry, in spite of the year's age-difference between them and the social stigma that usually accompanied those relationships in school when the girl was older. 

Harry had thought it natural, too, and Ginny had--to all outward appearances--gracefully stepped to the side, knowing Harry's heart wasn't hers, and that it would be too much to cling to him. It wasn't so much that she even wanted him; deep down inside herself where her innermost thoughts dwelled, the ones that she only dared touch in the still of the night, she did not love Harry, and she didn't want to be with him. She didn't begrudge him whatever happiness he thought he could have with Cho, but it was the principle of the thing. Harry had told _her_ that they were over, she hadn't been the one to tell _him_. Her resentment was a juvenile and childish fit of pique, but she was a teenage witch, and such things were really to be expected.

Still, Ginny had been well on her way to putting it in the past and moving on, when she had stumbled upon a half-dressed Harry and Cho in the girls' prefects' bathroom. She had entered with the innocent intent of taking a bath after Quidditch practice--and a rather sad practice at that--just in time to catch an eyeful of mostly-naked Harry and completely-naked Cho, both things she could have lived without seeing. Ever.

The head girl had snapped for her to get out despite Ginny's every right to be there as a Gryffindor prefect--which gave her more right to be there than _Harry_ had, after all. Ginny had walked away, deciding that the climb up five flights of stairs to use a bathroom in the tower was better than having to wait for Cho and Harry to finish up and leave. All things considered, she really preferred to wait until the house-elves sterilised the occupied bathroom before she used it again. 

It was so _irritating,_ truly, to never be seen at her full value by her peers. She doubted that she saw them for their true worth either, but not for lack of trying--once. There was a good reason she hadn't been put into Hufflepuff, after all. Hard work? Not her style, not when she could con someone else into doing it. Between Percy's help and Tom's in her first year, she didn't think she'd done a single _bit_ of her own homework, save for throwing in a few careful spelling errors after Tom had done her draft copies.

That help--that help and that hindrance, for she never needed to copy notes from others in her class, or barter their assistance in one of her worst subjects for her help with one of theirs--had ensured she hadn't socialised much in her first days at Hogwarts--not that Riddle had wanted her to be one of the giggly girls with never a moment for him. He'd told her she was better than they were, Percy had told her she was better than they were, and she'd believed them. After the vital first-meetings stage was over, she'd become far too arrogant to make the effort of befriending members of the same sex. Come to think of it, she was still that way, though nowadays she hid it well with the excuse of shyness. 

She'd driven the final nail into the coffin by her second month at Hogwarts, and by the time her second year rolled around it had become obvious that there would be no exhumation of the corpse of her social life. She'd briefly tried to make friends with her fellow housemates with _no_ success. Word of her possession had spread like wildfire because no one could keep a secret in Gryffindor, and they'd probably spent the entire holidays giggling about what had happened to Nose-In-The-Air Weasley. Even if they hadn't, they'd been scared of her--suspecting that some shade of Riddle lingered within her tortured little mind, just waiting to jump out and Avada Kedavra them. She'd laughed bitterly to herself at the time she'd overheard that, but it shouldn't have been such a tempting thought in retrospect.

Boys were much easier to understand, even when they were annoying dickheads like Potter.

Colin Creevey was always friendly enough with her, maturing and getting over his own worship of Harry sometime between their fourth year and their fifth, but he wasn't a girl. He and his best friend William were good; they welcomed her company whenever she chose to bestow it on them, as they were the only boys in their year and all the years below who could convince a pretty girl to sit with them of her own free will, but sometimes their chatter could drive her mad. She was just too picky, that was her problem.

After all, the only girl friends she did have were Hermione and Emeryth Zabini, and the latter was a _Slytherin,_ too, which all in all made for a dire lack of company when her brother, Harry and Hermione were off saving the world, or when Ginny was in any class but Potions, and in that gap between dinner and bedtime when they were supposed to be safely tucked up in their common room.

What she wanted, she realised as she disrobed and stepped into the steaming tub that she had just drawn, was someone who _understood_ her again. 

Again...

Again like Tom Riddle.

Before he'd started possessing her and making her think she had lost her mind, at any rate.

Riddle just had to ruin it for himself--and her. He had started off as a nice boy, like a brother who _didn't_ desire to torment her every spare minute of the day, like a brother who had the time to listen. If he'd only _stayed_ that way, she could have... would have... might have liked...

It occurred to Ginny for half a second as she washed her hair that this kind of rationalisation was one of the seven steps to madness, but that wasn't a helpful thought at all, so she dismissed it with scorn. There was little point to her musing on the subject of Tom Riddle anyway; Harry had killed him, killed the diary.

Two boys superficially so similar, in both looks and upbringing. Why had Harry turned out so noble and good, and such an absolute wanker, when Tom had gone... so wrong? What had been the turning-point for Tom?

Why was she beginning to _miss_ Tom, of all things? He had been evil, he had wanted to torture and kill Muggleborn students, he had--

--he had been her friend, and although he had failed her... in a way, through some twisted use of logic, she had failed him too. She couldn't have been the best of company for a boy of sixteen who'd been trapped in a book for upwards of fifty years. She had been horribly self-obsessed and hadn't given a thought to being what _he_ needed her to be, when he'd done everything he could that she'd asked of him.

She could have done something, she could have changed the outcome if only she'd been a little older, a little wiser. Even now she didn't think she wanted to have helped him kill Harry (although if she'd thought about it just half an hour earlier her answer could have been quite different), but there had to have been something she could have done if she'd only known what. If she could have influenced him as much as he influenced her, they could have come to a compromise, they could have found a way.

Hell, Harry had fought Voldemort in one incarnation or another _five times_ and lived, the first time robbing Voldemort of nearly all his power and reducing the Dark wizard to a half-dead shell of a man. If Harry could do that at barely a year old, there had to have been something she could have done at the grand age of eleven going on twelve. If she had another chance...

_She could bring him back, she could change him, she could make him good,_ an eerie little voice whispered behind her ear, the thought rattling through her brain like the Hogwarts Express. _She could give him another chance._

Another chance. Draco's father had been the reason the diary found its way into her hands. Professor Dumbledore had assured her parents that the diary had been destroyed, all traces of Tom erased, but did he _know_ that? Voldemort had a way of showing up again when the general populace assumed him dead. Perhaps it was time to wander down to the dungeons and waylay the heir to the Malfoy arrogance.

.

"I'm sorry, Weasel, I thought I misheard you asking for Riddle's diary back." Draco smirked carelessly, leaning against the wall in a casual fashion that he knew would annoy her just that little bit more and keep her off-balance a second or two longer.

"I did, Ferret. Your father can hardly need it, and I want it back. As a... keepsake." Ginny crossed her arms determinedly, glaring up at Malfoy and despising his greater height, although she would look quite the freak were she approaching six foot two. Her shyness had dropped quickly around him when she reached fifth-year and prefectship, which she had acquired for the sole purpose of getting in sarky comments without worrying about his feelings. Between them, they had settled for an apathetic mutual animosity without the venom of her brother's relationship, such as it was, with Malfoy.

"And I was born yesterday." He didn't believe a word of her story, and rightfully so. She was lying her arse off in a spectacularly bad fashion that was definitely not up to her usual standard of twisted tales, but if she'd planned to deface the diary, defecate on it, or throw it out the window, she would have probably come up with a more convincing story than 'give it to me, I want it'.

"You have no use for it. I have a use for it."

"Why should I give it to you, though? You're missing one simple point here--you're a Gryffindor. Whatever in the world would possess me to do something _you_ wanted? You couldn't pay me enough to make it worth my while to spit on you if you were on fire."

"Ever the charmer," Ginny snorted, glancing away. "Emeryth should be able to vouch for the fact that I'm not quite so despicable as the rest of my house, and for Christssakes, Draco, your father gave it to me the _first_ time and it _worked_ then." 

"I'll want something in return for asking him." Seeing her start to nod, Draco raised a hand. "Uh-uh-uh. Note I said 'for _asking_ him'. I make no promises that I can actually obtain it." 

"What do you want then?" 

Oh, this could be _very_ useful to him. If nothing else, it would serve to annoy Pothead, his Weasel and his Mudblood... if he chose to let them know. "I've not decided yet. Shall we just say... a favour? No time limit, I warn you. You may end up owing me for years." 

"One favour. Not sexual," Ginny stipulated, holding out her hand for him to shake. 

"My dear little Weasel, _that_ I have Pansy for." He shook her hand slowly, not releasing her fingers until the very last second, at which point he nodded, turned on his heel, and returned to the Slytherin common room, leaving Ginny to find her way back to Gryffindor alone. 

.

"Ginny, who's writing to _you?_" Ron asked his little sister in surprise a week and a half later, on a peaceful but chilly Saturday midmorning, after a snowy owl larger than Hedwig swooped down over her. It dropped a brown-paper parcel in her lap, taking care not to clip her breakfast plate with it, then snatched a kipper from Natalie's plate beside her and winged its way out the open doors again.

Ginny gave him a look of disdain and tucked the parcel into a pocket, catching Draco's eye over the tables and nodding nigh-imperceptibly in thanks. He nodded in return, glancing away as quickly as she did to ensure no one noticed their acknowledgement of each other. 

"That's for me to know and you never to find out, Ronnie." Honestly, who the hell did he think he was? Her only remaining brother at school, of course, but she didn't have to listen to him. Bill and Charlie she respected, and she'd practically worshipped Percy as a small child, but Ron had nowhere near their authority.

"Ginny, I'm _family!_ I'm the only family you have here, what with the twins graduating last year. C'mon, if you don't tell _me_ who _are_ you going to tell?" Ron pleaded. If she wasn't going to let him know, she could at least be gracious enough to tell him who he could go to for information.

"Absolutely no one. Have a lovely day." Ruffling his hair cheerfully, she sidestepped his grab for her pockets with the ease borne of living with six brothers, ducked out past the seventh-year Gryffindors, and flashed a cheerful sneer at Cho where the head girl sat at the top of Ravenclaw table as she went out the doors toward the stairs.

She reached Gryffindor Tower only twenty minutes later--brilliant timing, considering that it included a detour to ask Professor Flitwick about the correct pronunciation for the Vigoro-Denuo charm. The tiny professor had ensconced himself in his office with tea, scones and books to sit out the morning away from the rabble and get some reading done himself, but he'd been more than happy to help a student out who needed to know more about an obscure charm.

Her speed kind of impressed her, even if she did say so herself, and she ran up the last stairs to get to her dormitory, flinging the door open and slamming it shut once there, and hugging the tiny parcel closely the entire way. She knew what she was doing now, even though the future aspects of the plan were murky. She knew what she'd be doing in the next ten minutes, and after that, things would take care of themselves. She was brave, and she was smart. She had grown up now, and she remembered Tom Riddle's mode of operation. He would be the same as before. Maybe he would have lost his memory of her, and even if he hadn't then she'd just try her hand at Obliviating a book.

Sprawling over her bed and knocking the curtains back down with her foot, she ripped the parcel-paper carefully away from its contents. Her stomach did a nasty flip-flop as she pulled the last scraps of brown away to reveal the black book with a gaping hole right through it: the source of her nightmares, the cause of some of her wildest dreams before--

Faced with the harsh reality before her, Ginny wasn't even sure she _could_ fix it. But a simple Reparo should do the hole, then she could reanimate it. Professor Flitwick had given her the strangest look when she had asked about the charm; she'd explained it off as a torn family picture she needed to fix before her brother found out, and he had bought it.

Did she _want_ to fix the diary? What if she--

_Of course she wanted to fix it. Everyone deserved a chance to live, to right their wrongs._

The basilisk was dead. From what she had read of the spell, chances were that diary-Tom Riddle would return with absolutely no memory of her, only of his own thoughts until the point of diary-creation.

This was proof, she decided as the hole mended itself under her wandtip; proof that she was a competent witch, not a stupid little girl any more. And as she cast the reanimation charm on the book, she decided that it was also proof that she was an _accomplished_ witch. Not everyone could do that charm, even adults often had trouble. Flitwick had made her promise that if she couldn't perform it successfully she was to bring the photo to his office and he would help, but the green sparkle, the green glow that shimmered around the book told her that she had done it.

The book soaked up the green light greedily, radiating heat in turn that made her drop it to her bedcovers. Grabbing it carefully with the woollen gloves that lay at the end of her bed, she waved it in the air before it scorched the heavy red-gold linen covers. She hoped it wouldn't spontaneously combust in her hand and leave her with unsightly scarring, though she looked on the heat as being... fitting. Tom was a lot like playing with fire, but this time she didn't plan to get burned.

It was half an hour before the book had cooled sufficiently inside to turn the pages without discomfort, and she stared at those blank pages for another half-hour before she could finally bring herself to put quill to paper.

_'Hello? My name is Ginny.'_

Slowly, inexorably, ink leeched from her words to sink into the page and reappear in new shapes.

Hello, Ginny, my name is Tom Riddle. Tell me about yourself?

He didn't know a thing about her! Success! And this meant she didn't have to hasten an Obliviate spell, although she would be watching him very carefully for some time yet. He couldn't just reach out and take her, though that worry had crossed her mind once or twice. Last time... last time she had poured her heart and soul into him. This time she was on her guard.

_'I go to Hogwarts. I'm fifteen. I just started keeping a diary again today...'_

And I'm it? I'm glad...

He was flattering her shamelessly, but she didn't really mind. He had been ever charming with her, up until the last. Ginny giggled in exhilaration, rolling over onto her back and leaving the diary and quill where they lay, her arms free to hug herself in pure joy. She had done it, she had Tom again, and she could make him better--she would keep him this time.

With her head turned away from the diary, however, she missed seeing Tom's next words in a black-green ink that wasn't quite like her own. He had told her once that he was aware of what happened around the diary to some extent, but that thought didn't occur to her now. She was caught up with her own triumph, and rationality had abandoned her for the time being.

I'm glad you brought me back, little Ginny Weasley. So very, very glad... I'm still part of you, you know, and you will be mine.

By the time she rolled back, the words had faded to be replaced with How do you like Hogwarts? I went when I was eleven myself.

Ginny idly chewed on the end of her quill as she decided how to answer.

_'It's...'_


	2. chapter 2

"Ginny? Are you in there?" 

There were loud thumpings, then the voice called out again. 

"_Ginny!_"

It was Hermione. Hermione was calling out to her from beyond the locked dormitory door. Why was she--oh. Ginny had fallen asleep on her bed. She still felt tired, which was definitely odd considering she hadn't been at all sleepy when she had been writing to Tom--and she'd left their diary out! Damn, damn, da...the door was locked. She didn't remember exactly what point she'd locked it at, but so long as everyone _else_ was outside... 

"Just a minute!" she called quickly, hiding her inkbottle and quill under her pillow with little thought for the bedclothes they might stain. Ginny tucked the diary into her shirt as she scrambled up and ran quickly to the door before Hermione took it into her head to break it down, pulled it open and assumed a tired look. She gazed out at Hermione slowly, blinking and stifling a yawn. "S'amatter?" 

"Oh...you were asleep?" 

"No, Hermione, I was practising tantric sex with Professor Snape." She yawned again, this time unfeigned, and managed a smile at Hermione's expression of disgust. "Kidding. Yes, I was asleep, what's wrong?" 

Hermione frowned, glancing around Ginny to see the empty and clean room. "Ron was worried about you. Then you weren't in the common room, so I came up to check..." 

"I was fine. Am. Am fine. I got a letter from Selene at Beauxbatons and came up to answer it immediately, but I fell asleep." Brushing her hair back with a flick of her hand, Ginny leaned against the doorframe, tucking a foot back so as not to trip one of her dorm-mates who hurried through into the bathroom. 

"You have a friend at Beauxbatons?" Hermione looked surprised, stepping aside to let another girl rush past after the first. 

"We've been writing to each other for over a year." The lie came easy to Ginny's lips, a story sprung of a half-second's grasp for excuse to cover the delivery of the diary by Narcissa Malfoy's owl (a much less showy bird than that of Draco's father, but beautiful in an understated way). She supposed herself lucky in that her brother and Hermione finally cared little enough about goings-on with the Malfoys that they didn't recognise the bird that appeared every fortnight with sweets, money or whatever else Narcissa decided her son should need. Hermione's expression had moved to acceptance, and the older girl nodded. 

"So...if that's all...can I go now?" 

"Why don't you come down to the common room? You look pale, some--" 

"Some warm, dry air that's been in and out of other people's lungs for the last few hours would do me good?" Ginny interrupted flippantly, forcing another smile although going downstairs to be surrounded by noisy, chattering children was the _last_ thing she desired at that time. 

"Er...exactly. And lunch is in an hour, you can't miss that." 

"Yes, Mum." Crossing the room to where her bag lay, Ginny grabbed at the first blank parchment she could find, her spare quill and the bottle of blue ink that had wedged itself into her Transfiguration book. She had said she'd fallen asleep: if starting a letter to 'Selene' was necessary to keep the deception flawless, she would start one. It wouldn't matter if she got as far as 'Dear Selene' and then stared blankly at the parchment as if lost for words, when really she thought of what to tell Tom next.

Inevitably she _would_ have to tell him about their...past, she couldn't keep it from him forever, but that could wait for some time. Supplies in hand and the warm weight of her diary against her skin, hidden by layers of shirt and Weasley sweater in a shade of blue that her mother claimed 'brought her eyes out', she was still thinking on that as she entered the common room and claimed an unused armchair near her brother. What was the point of bringing out one's eyes? They would look something approaching grotesque hanging out of the eye-sockets, bouncing about when one walked... 

What was she to do with Tom now, though? She'd steered clear of saying anything to do with his older self, or of her first year at Hogwarts, but she had mentioned being appointed a prefect, and he had seemed proud of her. She took that one with some scepticism, but _maybe_ she was being too suspicious. When he had asked how she came by the diary, she had said she got it from a Slytherin. He had told her that he had been a Slytherin, and they discussed the anti-Slytherin sentiment that had been as prevalent in Tom's time as it was in her own. That was...the last thing she remembered. She must have drifted off at that point, leaving Tom hanging. Hopefully he wouldn't be too annoyed... 

"Just one game, Hermione?" Her brother's voice interrupted her thoughts, and she looked up to see him pleading with Hermione, chess set under his arm. 

"Ron, much as I'd dearly love to kick your arse, I have two chapters of Arithmancy to do by next week, and I would like to get started..." Hermione reached up to pat him consolingly on the shoulder. "After I get a chapter done, I promise I'll play one game with you. Chess...or whatever else you decide on." 

Ron brightened considerably at her words, but whined nonetheless. "But what do I do now?" 

"I'll play." Ginny spoke up then. "Chess, not anything else." It would be a sure thing to reassure her brother that all was right with her world, make him believe that she was fine and not to _worry_ about her. He was more overprotective of her now than he had been after she and Harry had gone down their separate paths. Of course, the onus was on him now to be Big Brother, Fred and George having come down hard on Harry last year for his preference of Cho over her. 

It had been a rough few months for poor, poor Harry, with some sort of embarrassing prank or another unleashed on him every few days. The twins had even given up tormenting Professor Snape for a month to focus their undivided attention on making Harry realise how stupid he had been, their sacrifice showing how much they truly cared. The burden of the little sister rested solely on Ron's shoulders this year, and he was trying. 

Great gods, oh how he was trying. 

"You will?" Ron wasted no time being surprised, kicking a chair around to face hers and dragging a small table over. "You can play white." 

"I'd rather play black." She demurred, taking a handful of the dark red pieces and setting them out on the board despite their shrill protests. The white players were cheering for their part, finally looking forward to a win. 

She had a surprise coming for them. She hoped. She did feel clever--she had worked advanced magic that day, she had gotten what she wanted from a Malfoy even though she would have to pay later, and she had someone who would listen to her. Someone who had very little choice about it, if she was feeling malicious. 

Ron advanced a pawn two squares, and she mirrored his action one pawn over, moving it forward two squares as she spoke. "You'n Hermione seem happy enough. Picture of domestic bliss and all that rubbish. Where's the boy wonder?" 

Ron snorted, moving his king diagonally into the space left by his pawn. The white king cheered, waving his crown and squeaking death-threats at the red king. "Probably off shagging Ch..." He froze, biting his lip as Ginny moved another pawn forward, freeing her knight. 

"Worry not, dear brother." She grinned, genuine laughter at things Ron didn't know spilling free for a second. "I'm not after Harry anymore. It was a childish crush and last year only proved it." 

That she had found enjoyment in George and Fred's toying with Harry's dignity at first was telling, she thought, and she really hadn't cared enough to protest their treatment of him even after a month and a half, when Ron had told them to cut it out already because it was upsetting Hermione. "I couldn't give a stuff who's ink he dips his quill into." 

"Ginny! Maybe we should set you up with a nice boy, then. Someone with a less dirty mind than your own. What about Justin from Hufflepuff? He's not seeing a girl right now..." 

"He's gay, Ron. I'd be bloody surprised if he was to take up with a girl. Ever." Ginny moved her queen out diagonally, her move barely noticed by her brother in light of her words. 

"Oh. Huh. That Ravenclaw git, Terry?" 

"Attatched at the tongue to Blaise Zabini. I think they're engaged." She moved her rook a space after Ron manoeuvred his own rook free on the other side of the board. "I'm happier as I am for now, touching as the concern is." 

"You sure?" He moved another pawn forward one, falling back in shock as she moved her queen. 

Adroitly capturing his king in one fell swoop of the red wood queen who shrieked a war-cry as it brained the white king with its crown, Ginny sat back in satisfaction. "Yes. I win." 

"That's...how did you...? You always--" 

"Sucked at chess? I've watched you and 'Mione enough to know exactly what you do--and exactly what not to do myself." 

"I heard that, Ginny!" Hermione called from the table at which she had her books and work spread out. 

"You were meant to!" she answered, finding her quill and ink from where they had slipped down into the crack of the armchair and putting them into her back pocket. "And I'm starving, so I'm going to mope about in the hall until the elves magic up our lunch. Seeya there." 

Sauntering out, leaving her brother watching after her in either awe or pique, Ginny hurried once the portrait closed behind her. If she made good time she'd be able to hide in a wall-alcove for five minutes or so before the lunch gathering began, enough time to apologise to Tom and promise to write more as soon as lunch was over and she'd found somewhere private enough. 

She hadn't been lying about her hunger, even though her explanation of just how she'd managed to beat Ron had been pure bullshit. Usually she lost focus after the third or fourth move in a game, but she'd set Ron off on the wrong foot by making him start on the offensive, and it had just...fallen into place. 

Glancing around furtively and finding the second-floor corridor she was in to be empty, she walked toward the nearest window, this a wide-ledged one with curtains draping over to keep out the cold in winter months. It being almost December, the thick velvet curtains were pulled shut, leaving her to pull them aside and haul herself up carefully so as not to scrape her knees or bash an elbow. Once she was tucked onto the windowsill she let the curtains fall again, pulled out her quill and dipped it into the blue ink. 

_'Tom? Tom, are you still there? It's Ginny.' _

Ginny! Are you all right? You went silent and never came back...

_'I'm sorry, I fell asleep. I guess I must've been tired without knowing it.' _

It's fine. I was worried about you. Don't feel bad about it; I've been here for over fifty years without anyone to talk to, I can wait an hour for you to sleep. 

_'I'll try to let you know next time I have the urgent need to pass out, Tom. And I have to go now, it's lunch time in a few minutes. I'll write more as soon as I can find somewhere private, I promise.' _

Appreciated. I'll see you soon.

She closed the diary quickly, returning it to her shirt and shoving her quill and ink into her pocket before she jumped down again and walked swiftly down to the hall. The lethargy and hunger had to be a side-effect of doing powerful magic. She had nothing to worry about, Tom had said himself that he'd been there fifty years without someone to talk to. If he _did_ remember her first year, he would have mentioned it, he would have slipped up and she would know. 

She would know. 


End file.
